sounds like enhancement shamans in TBC, did really enjoy that play style tbh ^_^

Yep, good old melee groups that actually had variety and you had to design correctly to get optimum performance out of. Unlike now that everything must come automatically and it's a disaster if someone is actually required to play the game beyond randomly smashing buttons for half an hour to get epix.

At least it was a game mechanic, unlike the current buff system which could be removed without any impact to the gameplay at all. And if you were "desperately searching for a shaman" you were doing it wrong. Or more accurately, your guild leadership were failing at recruiting the right people.

Very droll. Shamans were in short supply in some of my previous servers, even for the higher end guilds. Nor is it particularly fair to force someone to play a class they may not enjoy just for Heroism/BL.

The problem is quite simple; exclusive buffs are impossible to balance by definition, and either you have to factor in all available buffs or risk certain combinations of classes being able to trivialise the content.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

The problem is quite simple; exclusive buffs are impossible to balance by definition, and either you have to factor in all available buffs or risk certain combinations of classes being able to trivialise the content.

Why should they be balanced? Thinking that everything must be balanced is the fallacy that has driven WoW to its current braindead state. Balance is not about individual buffs bringing the exact same DPS or healing increase in every possible case. Balance is about higher level design, like making sure that 1 DPS + 1 buffer > 2 DPS >= 2 buffers. That way you need to build a "balanced" group instead of stacking the optimum. Individual buffs can be made so that one is completely OP in one situation and another in another situation, that way you must maintain diversity so that you can bring the right buff at the right time.

And if you decide that they must be balanced but can't be balanced, then the right approach is to remove them from the game completely since in the current for they add nothing to the game.

Why should they be balanced? Thinking that everything must be balanced is the fallacy that has driven WoW to its current braindead state. Balance is not about individual buffs bringing the exact same DPS or healing increase in every possible case. Balance is about higher level design, like making sure that 1 DPS + 1 buffer > 2 DPS >= 2 buffers. That way you need to build a "balanced" group instead of stacking the optimum. Individual buffs can be made so that one is completely OP in one situation and another in another situation, that way you must maintain diversity so that you can bring the right buff at the right time.

And if you decide that they must be balanced but can't be balanced, then the right approach is to remove them from the game completely since in the current for they add nothing to the game.

Because if there is no balance between classes then it punishes people that play the less favored classes, while rewarding FOTM players.

And it is about individual buffs bringing the same benefit because it is -impossible- to balance varying buffs simply because they vary.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

Because if there is no balance between classes then it punishes people that play the less favored classes, while rewarding FOTM players.

No it doesn't. Did you read what I wrote? Everyone has something unique that's powerful in a specific situation. It's the difference between "it doesn't matter what you bring because everything will be covered anyway" and "we must make sure we have the correct variety so that we are prepared for every situation".

And it is about individual buffs bringing the same benefit because it is -impossible- to balance varying buffs simply because they vary.

But there's no need to balance them in the sense that you're thinking of "balance". In simplistic terms: ally having a paladin that can aoe tank and horde having a shaman that can aoe heal is balanced. Both have a unique ability that is useful in different situations.

No it doesn't. Did you read what I wrote? Everyone has something unique that's powerful in a specific situation. It's the difference between "it doesn't matter what you bring because everything will be covered anyway" and "we must make sure we have the correct variety so that we are prepared for every situation".

Because that works so well for Arena, right? I'd rather people be able to play the class or spec they want than being forced into a role or benched because an encounter requires it.

But there's no need to balance them in the sense that you're thinking of "balance". In simplistic terms: ally having a paladin that can aoe tank and horde having a shaman that can aoe heal is balanced. Both have a unique ability that is useful in different situations.

That would be true if raid encounters varied between factions, but they don't.

Might I suggest a private server if you have such a boner for Vanilla mechanics?

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

Support still exists in the game as utility. If you want a more support role play as a feral druid, ret pally or enh shaman. The way these classes work they have gaps in their rotation where they can provide a bit of utility (i.e an instant heal with predator, tank/raid damage reduction with hand of sacrafice or devotion, or a damage reduction through grounding totem). While they may not be full support they are the closest thing you can get to it. But with how wow is right now a support class would not really work out too well.

I will never understand why people thought stacking shamans and drums was an interesting and fun dynamic.

Because it was yet another seperator between the leets and the scrubs; leets had the shamans, scrubs didn't.

Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

- Thucydides

There is a modern myth that people have always tended towards democracy, constitutions, electoral rights; but in truth, love of freedom has never been the predominant note of popular politics. At most times, popular demand has been for a strong government.

No it doesn't. Did you read what I wrote? Everyone has something unique that's powerful in a specific situation. It's the difference between "it doesn't matter what you bring because everything will be covered anyway" and "we must make sure we have the correct variety so that we are prepared for every situation".

This mentality would lead to more players being sat on different raid mechanics. "Okay we need the shaman on this one but don't need the paladin. Sorry pallyxyz you are sitting this fight out."

Because that works so well for Arena, right? I'd rather people be able to play the class or spec they want than being forced into a role or benched because an encounter requires it.

I don't care about Arena, I'm talking about raiding. Nobody is being forced into anything. You choose what class or spec you want to play. As long as you know what it means (e.g., hybrid lets you fill multiple roles but having less overall DPS, some classes are good at solo but bad at raiding, etc.) then it's fine. If you picked a class without understanding what its features are and how it's designed to function in a group, then that's your own problem.

That would be true if raid encounters varied between factions, but they don't.

There's no need for variance between factions, only between fights. In one fight you get an advantage if you can aoe tank, in another if you can aoe heal. One fight will be more difficult than it other if you don't have access to the specific class, but overall its still balanced (and diverse).

---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 10:03 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Noviskers

This mentality would lead to more players being sat on different raid mechanics. "Okay we need the shaman on this one but don't need the paladin. Sorry pallyxyz you are sitting this fight out."

That's a decision for how the guild leadership want to run their guild and what kind of guild you want to join. My guild cleared almost all of TBC without sitting anyone because of their class or spec. That's because we didn't care about pushing for high ranks, nor did we have the luxury of recruiting a large bench. However, it all worked out just fine.

Ah. So it'd be like every other class then, only bad at everything and not really participate.

If you want to be a negative nate then its yoor own fault. But just to amuse you i will say that its is as good and as bad as any other class, whatever floats your boat. The addition that a support role brings to a party is not overly powerful because it does not have substitute any other roles but instead a new and better way for fighting battles, in the sense that if played correctly, it would ease the fights and even win fights, but this does not necessarily mean they would be indispensable

OT: A support class would be fun for some players, but, unfortunately, as Aurust so eloquently argued, it wouldn't work in WoW. They have made the classes in this game to be able to fill multiple roles: A healer, a damage dealer or a tank. Also, each class needs to be able to do the majority of the solo content...well...solo.

One thing does not exclude the other. You can have a support class that is well capable of doing doing solo content the same way any other class can. Otherwise, if what you imply was really an issue, it would be common amongst all classes no? Bare with me, if we can get tanks and healers to be powerful enough to kill mobs when soloing and now that we have dps and tanks capable of self-healing and whatnot, why can't a support class have the same traits?

When you take these two factors into account, coupled with the very real possibility that players will whine that their one support tree (asusming full support was only one tree out of three) wouldn't be able to do dailies (the -new- way to distribute content) with the argument that they should be able to play the way they want, with the role they want, and still be able to progress. If you didn't know, this was a very common tank complaint in the past, and Vengence not only helped tanked "scale" threat better with better gear, but also allow tanks "more ease" when trying to complete dailies.

I'm not sure if I follow you here but I would say to those whiners that they had to live with their decisions. You cant choose a dps tree and play as a healer?o_O?
If the problem is progress in solo, then I think I have answered the question in the previous paragraph, I hope =).

---------- Post added 2012-11-06 at 07:55 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Abysal

The problem is that it's almost impossible to balance such a class. If they buff strong enough to make up for carrying one less DPS/Healer/Tank, then they become mandatory. If they don't make up for the loss of a traditional class, then why bring them? For arguments sake, we'll say that you replace a DPS for one. If you break even on DPS after his buffs and contribution, your HPS and tanking ability will be higher. Now it's mandatory. If you don't break even on DPS but need the extra healing, it'd be easier to bring a Smite heavy Disc Priest or a Mistweaver.

They dont need to come as surregates to the other roles, they are meant to improve the output of as many allies as they can AND, in a more guild wars 2 way, even define the outcome of battles with in battle with their utilities. And perhaps a good Smite may be sometimes useful(rarely) but in that situation, a support palyer would be able to handle it or help handling it without distracting the healer from its main role, which can be fatal =P. But I see ur point though, and I know that as it stands, normal dungeons dont need a support spec. However, heroic dungeons, raids, challenge modes and pvp could be made to work awesomely I must say ^^.

you can get the logistics to work for say, 10m raids, then the buff class becomes OP in 25m. If you nerf him to not being OP for 25m, he becomes useless in 10m. You'd have to have a mechanic where the strength of his buffs change dependent entirely on the group he's in. It'd make for both a confusing spec, and one that's hard to make from a design perspective.

Of course =). First off, a support spec would be tailored to benefit specific types of classes whilst also having a limit targetwise. Ie: A bounty hunter support spec like THIS, its natural benefit would be to physical ranged classes, for now the hunter. It also has utility abilities that can make the difference but it would greatly excel a hunter's or any future bow/gun user. Why bring a bounty hunter to a raid that perhaps only has one hunter and the rest melee dps(if that is even considered smart play) would be the utility that helps all, the certainty that you get a OP hunter thanks to the support player and a backup solution when things get out of control or aren't going well.